MY POINT OF VIEW 26 (by Tatiana Sisquella)
How can we claim to know anything about a people if we don't know what makes them laugh?
Laughter unites and increases the feeling of having things in common, it produces a sensation of being at ease with other people, and it gives us information about the person we share our laughter with. In addition to all this, it is usually a reliable indication of character; not always, I know, but that's another question…
This is why when we want to learn more about another culture, we should do everything we can to find out what has them in stitches with laughter, what kinds of jokes or funny stories get them howling, and which theatrical gestures are infallible if you want to see a smile in less than 3 seconds flat. The problem is that, very often, laughter is related to the spoken word, and this can mean that outsiders find it hard to understand who we are and what makes us laugh.
